Ember Remembers
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: [Rewritten, Complete] Ember's look on how her life came crashing down around her, what her song means, and why she draws power from people chanting her name.


Author's Notes: Ever wonder why Ember's song had those weird lyrics? Ever wonder why she got power from people saying her name? This is my take on it, her life, and the emotions behind the song. I had to rewrite this, because I didn't feel like I got everything I wanted to across, and people were BSing about me making her die too young. So here's the new version of my favorite story. Enjoy.

I do not own Danny Phantom.

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My name is Ember McLain. Well, my new name is. I'm not sure how I should judge my age since I'm dead, but since I _am_ dead, there's no reason to lie. After all, I'm always gonna look younger then I am. I'm forty-nine years old. I died when I was almost twelve years old. This is sort of my life story, although I don't expect anyone to read it. I'm not sure I want anyone to. This is just to vent my emotions, I guess. Spectra told me that psychologically, I'm a mess. I guess she'd know. But I wasn't that stable as a child, either, so I guess that makes sense. You may have a mental image of me as a punked out, rocker type little girl with flaming hair and an attitude. However, that only developed after I died.

When I was alive, I was different.

Even if I had told you, and you had known me when I was alive, you'd never have known that I was the same Ember. I looked much the same, clothes withstanding, but when I was alive, I was not arrogant like I am as a ghost. I was not even confident, actually. I was just this weird, lonely girl who nobody noticed other than to yell at or bully. I was shy and nervous, scared of the world yet fascinated by music. Surprised? You should be. I have spent so much of my afterlife struggling to change from that fake, shaky little girl that I thought I had to be. Lots of ghosts are like that – their living personas and their dead ones vary. Look at Skulker.

I wasn't always so weak. It would be a lie to tell you I spent my whole living life as a shy girl (although I always loved music). For the first seven years of my life, I was actually pretty spunky.

I was an only child up until that point. My mother had never been close to me, because she was a workaholic. When I did see her, she seemed to be wary of me. My father was another story. He was always ready to hear about my day at school or what I'd done. He taught me everything I knew; bike riding, tree climbing, how to read… Everything. We must've spent six hours together every day. My father picked me up from school every day and he brushed my hair at night. He made my sandwiches to take to school and he taught me how to read music. Looking back, I see that he was trying to make up for my mother's absence. He wanted to make sure I didn't care that she was so freaky, so distant. And for a while, it worked. I couldn't have cared less about my mom. I had my dad. Sometimes I sang for him and he told me I was great.

But after my eighth birthday, things went downhill in a hurry.

First, my dad got promoted. All of a sudden his work hours changed and I was alone. Constantly. He wasn't there anymore. The person I loved the most abandoned me. His personality seemed to do a flip. I didn't understand why. My good grades vanished in a poof of smoke. My dad was snapping at me anyway; what was the point of trying when he hated me regardless? It didn't make sense. I was too young to understand it – maybe I still am after forty years of being dead, because it still hurts. It hurts to think about how my best friend suddenly started screaming at me and drinking and I couldn't do anything about it. It hurts because I don't know when, but at some point, I quit feeling. We weren't friends anymore. We were more like distant, long-lost relatives.

I still cry sometimes. When I do, my ponytail vanishes and little flames fall like rain – one for each tear I cry. They burn blue. A couple of times I've been so out of my mind that I thought that was funny. I think something is wrong with me. One time I hit Skulker with a flame, but he took one look at my face and flew away. He started to raise his gun. I wouldn't have minded, really. I wonder what happens when ghosts 'die'. I sat there and looked at him, waiting for it. He just shook his head and left. Apparently, he didn't want to shoot me when I was down.

Too bad fate didn't share that sentiment.

By the time I was eight and a half, I wasn't the same girl. I was scared of everything. I was quiet. If I spoke one wrong word, someone would snap at me or scream at me. At school, I was practically invisible. I was a piece of scenery. Sometimes a kid would bully me, but usually they only did so once. I had this way of lying there after I'd been hit that scared people. I would just lay there, stone still and quiet as could be, even if the position I landed in was horribly uncomfortable. Most times, the bully would run away. Those that didn't freaked out, thinking they'd really hurt me. But I was too far gone to be hurt. My spirit was broken and I was not living. I was just taking up space and breathing air. The fiery personality that I'd earned my nickname from was gone. I didn't feel like I was a person. I wasn't real, I was just a piece of the background.

Things only got worse when my mother announced she was pregnant with my brother.

I was her servant from the second I got home until I left for school. I did everything. I cleaned the house and mowed the lawn and raked leaves and took out the trash and most of the time I'd pass out before I reached my bed. My dad told me it was my responsibility. I asked him once what he met and I was slapped. It wasn't very hard. But after that I no longer cared about anything. My grades were failing and I was held back a grade because my parents would not see the teacher. I lost fifty pounds because I couldn't will myself to eat. (And I was thin as it was.) All my toys were taken away to be given to my brother. Heh. Not like I had time to play with them anyway. I worked until my back screamed with agony and my joints were on fire, all for nothing.

I prayed for a miscarriage. I'd never been a believer, but I prayed anyway. '_Let the baby die. Let him be adopted into a family that gave a damm. Let the baby and Mom die, too'_. It may seem bad, but it was my last little bit of fighting spirit trying to salvage something in my life. I wanted one thing to go right. Just once. I was beginning to think that I could take no more. This hell wasn't fair, it wasn't right! I had gotten good grades and been almost popular and yet both my parents turned on me. I had been a faithful servant and my mother hated me. I spent all my hours trying to figure out what I could do better, to make her happy. Some nights I still wonder what I could have done, what I could have given to make us a family.

I just didn't understand. I still don't. Sometimes I just go ballistic and scream and wreck things with my guitar until Danny throws me back into the Ghost Zone. I don't know why. I get so upset… So depressed and outraged and lonely all at once that I either destroy something or cry. It's like I lose my mind. I can't help but think that it was all my fault, some how. Danny, for all his weirdness, was actually concerned about me. I think being half ghost messed up his mind. He saw me crying once; he asked me why. I didn't respond, partly because I was shocked anyone cared and partly because I didn't know. I still don't know why I cry over long dead people who hated me. If I don't understand after all these years, how could the halfa hope to? How could anyone hope to?

When my brother was born, he was healthy. I could have screamed.

Thank God, though, my parents backed off of me. They fondled over him every minute he was awake. They cuddled him. They smothered him in gifts and gave him my old room, at which point I moved into our tiny basement. I didn't care. At least now they weren't screaming at me. But still, I can't help but feel I'll never understand them. They laughed when he smiled and screeched with joy when he gurgled out basic sounds. They had a fit if he cried or got hurt. My grades soared and I managed to get back into the grade I supposed to be in. I learned how to use the first aid when I skinned my knee. With them ignoring me, I felt a little more secure in my world. Finally, I was safe. They weren't focused on torturing me anymore. They were focused on this little boy, this poor fool who had more pressure thrown at him then me. I almost felt sorry for him. Tutors, learning games, Hooked on Phonics almost as soon as he was born. It was sickening. They shoved me away and shoved their dreams at him. I later realized that if I had been born a boy, they'd have done likewise to yours truly. Maybe it really would have been better if he'd died. All I knew was that I was grateful not to be him and amazed to have my life back.

Three years passed in this way.

I told myself they were great. I tried my hardest to will the pain away, you know? I couldn't deal with it. I told myself I was better off alone. That I was better off being ignored and being the invisible girl. I tried so hard to block everything out. In my mind, I was safe and loved. In my mind, I was tough and I could make it on my own. I began working part time for the music teacher at the high school, and he taught me guitar. I felt like I had my dream back. Now I could be a rock star, just like I always wanted. I came up with this outfit – this black number with awesome boots – and I got an A in Home Ec for it. I tried to tell myself that I could keep going. That everything was going to be alright now. A little part of me knew that no, nothing would ever really be as I needed it to be, but children are adaptive. We learn by doing, and by doing we learn to do whatever eases the pain. So I locked it all away and pretended to be happy. I buried myself in tasks, however trivial.

But then, early in September, I met a boy named Jake. He was in highschool, and looking back it creeps me out to think that I fell for him. I couldn't help it. He seemed to understand me, even though I was only eleven. My parents had a ten year age difference, so I thought nothing of our own. But it was short lived. All he wanted was to try and get it on with me, especially once he saw me in my rock star outfit. I got scared and cried and said no. He said he didn't mean it, that he'd call me later and that he really loved me. I believed him because I was a shy, broken eleven year old who'd never dated before. Two weeks later, I saw him in the mall with a girl who was extremely pretty. He didn't even recognize me. He didn't even know my name… I was nothing. Since then, I've seen him with a hundred girls. Now, I know what men are like. Now, I guard myself better, keep my secrets secret until I'm sure I can let it out.

I was too young to understand. Jake tore my heart apart. Suddenly nothing seemed as bright. I felt as if a part of me was torn away. For most of November, I was stuck taking care of my little brother. The only good thing I'll say for that toddler was that he called me 'pretty' like it was my name. He thought I'd be big one day, and he wanted me to autograph everything for him. That helped just a little. Ever since Jake, I no longer found my bright grey eyes and long fiery orange hair beautiful. They looked plain, and my round, soft face didn't seem nearly as appealing. My mother was gorgeous. My father wasn't handsome, but his dark skin looked exotic on him. On me, it did little other than make me look awkward and alien. I guess you could say I lost a lot of self-confidence after Jake. And I didn't have any to spare in the first place. But like before, I kept trying, kept pushing myself on. I told myself that years from then, my life would be a real rags-to-riches story and I'd make him sorry he ever lived and lied to me.

It was little more than a month later, on the third of December, when I died.

I was walking around with my family. We always did all our Christmas shopping the first week of December. It was the only time my parents didn't snap at me. After all, there were people looking. Even watching my brother like a hawk and holding several shopping bags, I was moderately happy. I had always loved that season. No one ever called me a goody-goody then. I was getting out of the house with no questions asked, no slaps to the face, and no screams upon returning. This was truly paradise.

I remember I was humming Jingle Bells. Even though we hadn't celebrated it in five years, tomorrow would've been my birthday. Before, I had looked upon my birth as some sort of curse. Now, I was smarter. I'd done everything for myself, and I thought things were going pretty good, so maybe, just maybe, life wasn't a curse. I wondered if I dared ask for a present. I kept thinking about as the day wore on and I kept feeling braver and braver. I _was_ their daughter, after all. They owed me something, and one present was the least I could have asked. After all they'd put me through over the years, didn't I deserve this? I wouldn't ask for anything expensive, anyway. As the sun set and we walked home, I knew I'd have to speak up.

Me and my big mouth.

"Mom, can I have-" I never got to finish my sentence. With a look of fury, she turned from where she'd been talking with my dad.

I remember she yelled something about not interrupting her. She said something about greed, too, but the exact words escaped me. I remember vividly the looks of passerby as her hands connected with my chest I was sent flying backwards. To this day, whenever the wind blows, I can recall the way my hair flared out as I fell, and the way the sight of the shops faded into the sight of a beautiful grey sky framed by red and green lights.

To this day, I'm not sure if I managed to hit the ground, or if the car hit me first.

I felt nothing, however. The force of the car was lost upon me. As was my landing, thankfully. All I can recall is that as I lay there, my blood forming a halo-like pool around my head, the sky seemed to blur with all the faces of people around me. It was hard to breathe. Finally, someone cared. Someone asked for my name. In a daze I gasped, "Ember." My real name is my own secret. But once I'd said my cherished nickname, things changed. Suddenly it seemed they were chanting my name. People I didn't know kept yelling 'Hold on, Ember!' and 'Don't let Ember die!'. I started to cry, I was so moved. My parents never called me by any name other than 'girl'. Now people knew my name. It gave me power and contentment in my last moments. I was not just a thing, an object, a servant. I was a person now. I was real and I felt like I was whole now. I felt things for the first time in so long. It was like I had just come out of a long sleep. Maybe all I needed was attention.

As I lay there, I saw Jake in the crowd. He was crying uncontrollably, in a way I've never seen any boy cry since. He didn't look like he could stop himself. I didn't think he had it in him. Until then, I hadn't even thought he had a heart. Maybe I should have given him more of a chance. They say there's plenty of time for regrets when it's too late. One of his girls was nearby, looking stunned. Shallow little thing, probably didn't know anything about him or me. The last thing I heard before I died was his voice. I could feel his regret in his words.

"Ember… I'll remember that name. Ember…"

And that's my life story. I wish I could say I had the strength to choke out something to someone, to do what they do in the movies and make everything right as I died. But I couldn't. I tried as hard I could; yet even as I did my vision was going foggy all over. My breath came slow and labored. I tried with every ounce of willpower I had to say something, to someone. No matter how many movies you watch where someone dies, the pain is something you never grasp until death. I can't emphasize this enough. There is no way to manage to speak, and if you can, it is soft and short. Everything is shutting down. Most times, no one will hear what the dying person says.

But those people did. They caught my final whisper of my nickname.

And they will always remember the last moments of yours truly,

Ember.


End file.
